China's biggest construction firms will spend £2.2bn to flatten 700 mountains levelling the area Lanzhou, allowing developers to build a new metropolis

The project will be China's fifth "state-level development zone" and the first in the country's rapidly developing interior. Others: Shanghai's Pudong and Tianjin's Binhai, home to an unfinished, 120-building replica of Manhattan.

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Liu Fuyuan, former high-level official at the country's National Development and Reform Commission, said project was unsuitable because Lanzhou is listed as among China's most water-scarce municipalities. "The most important thing is to gather people in places where there is water,"